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RPlog:What We Become
Blaring jizz music, hazy smoke, and a threatening smell assault the senses. Combined with the relative dimness, this makes Chalmun's cantina a difficult adjustment coming from the oppressive suns found out-of-doors. A full bar dominates most of the room, that half-arc offering the bartender some degree of protection from the rowdy occupants of the cantina. Deep alcoves have been carved out of the edges of the room, circular booths filled with table, chairs and small lamps which cast a dim light. Two steps and a droid detector must be navigated at the entrance, which stands opposite a low-slung bandstand. Cheap tables and an extremely heterogeneous group of rough alien beings fill the rest of the room. In a place like this, a lone woman is somewhat of an oddity to see. Especially one that is seated by herself in an out of the way place, and positioned at such an angle that she can see all potential entrances to this room. Not only is she alone, but from her attire and demeanor, she is clearly not one of the working girls that do frequent these establishments. This fact was hammered home with one neat stroke of a small hand held weapon that was placed across the throat of one arrogant scruffy nerf herder who made the mistake of attempting to buy her a drink and invite himself to her table. The barfly made a hasty exit after that, and the dark splotches of blood on the floor attracts the attention of lazy flying bugs, while the smear of it was swabbed off the edge of the table by a nervous looking barkeep. On the table before her is a bottle of some amber colored liquid, the glass she's holding appears to be the cleanest glass in the entire building. The Sith had been on the planet for only a short time though there was no rest in his eyes. For all intents and purposes he looked absolutely exhaused, but still felt refreshed inside with meditation. The fleet was moved, and the busy man was off lost in the desert an in his own thoughts for most of the day before he actually had something come over his comlink. Dareus moves into the city, though Mos Eisley is populated, there were few places that anyone could hid from him- either through informants or his own senses. Walking through the streets softly, the cloaked figure goes without notice for the most part since he was almost a permanent fixture on the planet. Dareus doesn't take long to slip into the Cantina; and although the doors and light from the twin suns exclude him from most notice, he still remains a dark and cloaked figure in every possible sense. Pulling the hood from himself he stands for a short moment before ordering a drink from a passing waitress and moving directly towards Lynae's table. It was a tiny and brief sensation, but he follow his instincts from now on, "Of all the people to come to a place like this...you would be the last I would expect." The chair slides out beneath him and he takes a quick seat. "Of all the gin joints in all the starry universe?" the dark haired woman replies in a low voice, the same voice that the fledgling Sith should remember, and still holding the same faint tracing of a Caridan accent. She lifts her glass slightly, a minute gesture, indicating her unspoken welcome for his arrival, a brief look in her eyes that would indicate relief at his safe arrival. And, of course, that he even was willing to meet her at all. Those same piercing blue eyes roam over Dareus, scanning him from head to toe before she makes a low voiced comment, "I can see you've been keeping yourself alive and healthy, as usual. Why don't you just pummel yourself into the sand using your own hands instead of having someone else do it?" As his whiskey arrives, Dareus looks her over since there was no bottle following it. Handing the man a glass, she simply takes off to get the rest of his standard order; but he quickly pushes his gaze back onto Lynae. "I don't have the luxury of failure Lynae. You of all people should know that by now." He had come, that much was true; though how much he trusted her, and why he even came remained a mystery. The glass of his own dark amber liquid is quickly dead while it flows down his throat welcomingly, before set aside. "I'm a dead man." Dareus' eyes never leave hers "In more ways than one. I came here because you once were like family to me. Nothing more." The bottle arrives and he tosses enough for the table on it, not caring whether or not she paid for her own drinks yet "You realize that I should kill myself for even seeing you. If anything, just to save face." A ghost of a smile drifts across Lynae's face, the right edge of her lips curving upwards ever so faintly, though the look in her eyes does not match the expression on her face. But then, it rarely does; after all, she's spent her entire life efficiently - brutally even - suppressing every single emotional impulse she's ever had. Talk about having issues with interpersonal relations. She holds her glass easily in her right hand, keeping her left hand free, though she keeps both hands within his sight - just in case he gets twitchy. "You could always haul me in and get a reward for doing so," she offers in her clear, well spoken voice. "Or, we could turn each other in and take out a suite on the hospitality level and see what new tricks Fleming has up his sleeve," she suggests and lifts one shoulder in a faint shrug. "I have no family left but for you and Maris, and I will never see my father again," the last words are spoken with a heavy thread of bitterness. He does watch her carefully, but not as a threat- the view remains for her weaknesses. "You were given the chance." Dareus says it simply and to the point; a quick glance going to the table next to them. "Leave us." Something in the man's eyes send him off, though the real reason remains unknown. "You could take command of my whole battel group right now. No Korolov, no Vadim....just you following every order to the letter, and doing what you do best." The bottle arrives and he quickly refills his glass before it is placed back down "There is no hospitality to me anywhere. Caspar and the New Republic alike would execute me. I'm a threat, one they had not anticipated; and one they don't want or need in their lives." There was some part of regret in his words before he leans in "You did what we swore never to do, in that very cell on the Inquisitor...we abandoned each other." Lynae will never, ever, be the sort of person who welcomes any invasion of her personal space. Except.. this is Dareus, and she allows it without blinking, without flinching or pulling back. In fact, she leans forward slightly in return and replies in the same quiet voice, "I did not abandon you. You choose your path. You choose to kneel at Malign's feet, knowing that kneeling to him was kneeling to Vadim. Bowing your head to the image that is the Emperor's," her words are softly spoken, though the words themselves are heavy. "Were I to have accepted Malign's offer, I would have wrecked such havoc, such bloody havoc, that the universe itself would recoil in my way. I see blood, Antoine," and in that moment her thoughts are heavy enough - strong enough - that the mental image is a clear to her as the room itself that they are in. Her eyes move, the blue of her eyes turning to an icy shade, "I see it with my waking eyes, I see it in my dreams. The smell of it, the taste, the instinct to rip the nearest offensive person asunder and paint the room in sweet sweet blood." She allows a quirk of a smile to form on her face. "And it would be so easy. I know precisely how to eviserate someone. I know all about letting the blood out of a body until the body is dead. I know.. I have done it. I could teach classes." There's a short bark of laughter and she chases the sound back with a sip of her drink. "The universe does not need me to do that, Antoine." A quick wave of his hand dismisses his name to her, "He's dead. He was a long time ago when renounced myself for what I thought was mistakenly right." Dareus gives her a quick and soft glance before it turns gold that follows itself it a long sip of whiskey, the glasss hitting ont he table enough that it wasn't expected, but the echo superceded the drop. "Do you think you're the only woman who's killed the enemy!?" The Sith grows impatient withi that thought, because he knew her yet it softens after a few moments, "Do you think the Jedi never killed?" The eyes remain unblinking on her for a long and seemingly stopped moment before he reaches a hand out to take hers "You are what I was holding on to. You were my family, my council and my hope." The gloved hand releases it in a short second "And just like that, I was dead." The long sigh of breath finally escapes him "We exiled ourselves because we believed we should not fall back, yet now we stand here on two sides of the fence. You DID abandon it. In an instant, you forgot what both of us gave our lives for." "You accuse me of abandoning you?" Lynae whispers in return, leaning forward slightly. "You, accuse me? We followed that fool into treason. I cast aside my career, my LIFE to take you and that fool of a woman out of holding and put you to safety with the intent of going back and KNOWING I would be executed. You insisted on going with. We barely survived. We were given another chance at life, and you ran back to Malign to kneel at his feet," she shakes her head, leaning slowly back. "To kneel at his feet, to embrace this force. This mumbo jumbo of a religion. I don't CARE whether you can prove it or not, nor how many times it's been demonstrated. If I can't replicate it in the lab, I don't believe it," she states flatly with another slow shake of her head. "You had a chance a life. We could be somewhere else, right now, you with Kiare and the children growing safely in her womb. Instead they are in stasis until she's ready to bring them to life, to let them maturate naturally. You are the one who cast aside the chance for a different life to seek this one. If I abandoned you, then YOU abandoned me as well." So it would lay on seriousness then. Dareus was no stranger to it, neither did he fear it anymore. Through his very existance, the dark side wells up in him slowly, he was not trained- but he was also not a fool. The darkness creeps across the floor like a liquid that pulls itself inside his very being; anything Lynae felt was a mere tiny fraction of Malign, but it was the same in the end. His fist his the taple hard enough to send his glass flying on the first punch "I *told* you to leave, and you disobeyed, why, because you feared losing faith in your principles. Principles that are now misguided and nothing but dust int he wind Lynae." Whatever she remembers of him was quickly fading, and he embraced every moment of it; though not control it. "Why would I give my life to a whore who mocks children that could be mine." The words come out somewhat spiteful thought it passes. "I trusted you. I felt for you and I still to this day would die for you. I loved you like family that I never could have in my own possession." He takes a long sip of the bottle before it gets placed- gently on the table, his malice now in his words, more than actions "I never abandoned you." A hand falls on Lynae's, if she doesn't pull it back fast enough "I defended you when no one else would." She is many things, not just as a person but as a soldier as well. One of those things is calm in the face of the storm of Dareus's presence, and she can feel it, sense it, the chill of the Force sweeping through the room. Though to her it seems as though it emanates from him as the focal point, she is but a rock in the rift. And instead of being frightened, she feels again what she felt in Malign's presence. Determined. Her head tilts slightly, chin lifting, and she turns her hand slightly in his and grasps his hand tightly, nails digging into his skin and leaving marks instantly. "You did not need to defend me. I defend myself. I, and only I, am in charge of my future. What ever destiny I have, is mine and mine alone. I stood before the Senate of the NR and offered up flesh and blood, stripped down so that they could deliver twenty lashes to my bare back, stood there UNBOUND without restraint, willingly holding myself in place." Her grip tightens, "The fact that not a single one of those senators had the balls to actually wield the whip is not my fault. I stood there, and won my freedom. Once," she says, "from the Empire when the choice was to kneel and swear or refuse and die. Second, when I endured the operation to remove the device from my heart. Third when I said no to Malign - not just once, but TWICE. And last, but not least, when I stood and offered my very BODY and blood as the only reparations I was willing to offer. For I refuse to apologize for a job well done, nor for a career that I am proud to have led." She leans closer again, keeping her grip on his hand in return to his, "I have won my freedom. What did your capitulation win for you?" His mood changes, swiftly, like the winds that plague Tatooine. Pulling both gloves from his hands the fall idly to the tabletop when one hand falls onto hers, the one gripping as tight as he now demanded the force be within himself "My redemption." The words come out softly, nothing more than he can speak before slumping into his chair and taking a deep breath, "You think you're the first to be captured and bleed for the Empire..." A small laugh escapes his lips "You're not the first, and you won't be the last." Taking another long sip of whiskey, he lets the bottle sail against the wall to wherever it will go- tired of its hold on him. "You have no concept of freedom. And for that, I'm sorry, because I could have given it to you." The loneliness sets in slowly, slipping up his body but his resolve doesn't falter "I knelt then because I was afraid. My second time sealed my future to what end even you can't see. I'd just wish you would have been at my side for it." "At you side, as what? Malign's pet plague creator? At the helm of one of his ships, doing what? Killing more? How many more do I need to kill in order to bring something that resembles peace to the galaxy?" Lynae challenges in return. She leans back, reaching for the bottle to pour another thumbs-width of liquid into her glass, setting the bottle aside and holding the glass between both hands. "If I had knelt at your side, Malign would have reached into my mind and found the ONE thing that I will not have held over me as a weapon. If he had delved into my mind just ONE more time I'd have had no choice but to attempt to destroy him to protect that knowledge." Her gaze is flinty as she stares at Dareus, "I am a soldier. I choose, now, who and what I will fight for, who I will defend, and who I will not. There is enough blood on my hands to fill this room to the rafters and spill into the sand like rain. And I loved every moment of it," she says in a low hiss. "Loved it. Hated it. Hated that part of me, that person inside, who relishes in the death and destruction. The cold intellect that creates things that kill hundreds upon thousands like that," she snaps her fingers for emphasis. "What would you have of me, Dareus? What? We bled beside each other. I hear the sounds of you being tortured in my dreams. And worse, I can think of more things Fleming could have done. So I say again, what would you have of me? I came here because we are what we are, we have a bond that refuses to fade - one that will not be set aside. Hate me, feel that I betrayed you? fine. But know that I.. " she pauses, shakes her head, a low bark of bitter laughter, "know that I love you anyway, as the family that I will never have again - you are part of my family." "By the time your own holy words have sunk into your mind; I will show you." He didn't care anymore- she was right in one respect, he loved her like family, but even that could be killed with enough time. "You think you've seen blood from a few small hands of people who barked orders at your, or made you weep in the night because you held command." Even Dareus leans back in his chair, "You'll never be rid of it. Those nightmares will haunt you for the rest of your natural life until you can't bear it anymore. They won't leave because they know what you are. More than yourself, you can't lie to your dreams and your heart." Several fingers tap along the table while Dareus thinks things through "Go ahead and have your little laugh of where I bowed." Leaning in softly, his blue eyes serve to nearly slap her in the face, but he keeps a fair distance "You see me tortured in your dreams because you belong with me. Not some useless science officer on the far end of the galaxy; but one of the first women at the forefront of history. One who can *MAKE* history through her own actions. I will haunt your nightmares Lynae until you follow your heart. I know because I've seen you in mine." "Do you love her?" Lynae asks in reply. He stops dead mid emotional outburst whe she asks the question. The apprentices' head hangs for a moment before his resolve returns and he stares into Lynae's eyes. "Yes." A finger is raised to her, shaking softly and judgmentally "Which is why I let her go." It was a weakness of his that he would never announce, his new life and hope cost him what he had sought every breath he had taken. "That is irrelevant." Dareus knew he couldn't quite lie to her, not yet. "Don't make me warn you like I did Skywalker. If you step one inch towards my family...I won't stop Lynae. Not until you're begging for death at my feet." It seemed like he was lying. Even intelligence agencies confirmed it. He left her aimlessly on some unknown world; and his pain was now visible for everyone to see. "If anyone threatened one I loved, I would tear that person apart into so many little pieces that the body would never be able to be reassembled. I would rip this universe asunder and sow salt in my wake," Lynae replies in a low calm voice. "I do not love lightly. I do not give emotions willingly. I do not 'feel' easily. I am NOT designed for this. Emotions are messy, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and frankly I do not like being tied emotionally to anyone. But just as you would destroy someone who even thought of harming your family, I would do the same." She holds his gaze with hers, "One inch, Dareus. So much as ONE inch. One threat, even the barest hint of a threat, and I too would not stop until death comes at last. Death would be sweet oblivion compared to what I would do until then." The fire slowly returns in his eyes, that deep blue whic had not left her gaze for even the briefest moment. "I never wanted your love." He fills the glass of whiskey quickly before it vanishes down his throat "Because it makes me weak." If they were to play this game, so would Dareus, but without reprieve. He had no loyalties save one- Malign. "You think that a few years service will wipe the blood from your fingertips?" The Sith laughs, a genuine and sincere one for once. Several knuckles pop as his grip tightens "By all means bring my former wife in. But realize that I will hold no one responsible." The finger goes back in the air, pointed to Lynae "But you. Where your dreams see me screaming, I will appear, every sweaty night you wake up...I will be there in your nightmares." Whatever love he had for her, was driven by his own purpose. A hint of defeat goes through his voice "I can't protect you any longer....no matter how much I want it." "I have no intention of stepping even one foot towards your wife. Frankly, I have no reason too. I don't, officially, know anything. And since no one is asking, there's no reason to even lie about the knowledge that I don't officially have," Lynae retorts quietly. "What are you protecting me from, Dareus?" she challenges, demands actually, in that same clear low voice. "Who is left that wants my head on a platter anymore?" A dismissive hand waves off the question before he quickly replies "Don't ever call me that name again." The eyes remain locked on her, like a predator now searching for its' prey "Warn your new little home that the fire will not be stopped. I tried to bring you to the side which will win. You were smart, but too blind to see that my own- OUR own treason cleared the Empire of those who would finish it all." A simple gtrin crosses his face "Everything happens for a reason. Including us following Kreldin. Warn your new pitiful family that seems to hide behind neutrality." His hand falls to a bottle once more but stops before he finishes a sentence that he felt he owed her. "Even the Galactic Empire may fall. But the Sith will exist until nothing is left." Lynae is silent for a few long moments, long enough for the room itself to seem loud in the wake of the absence of sound. The heat from the twin suns seems to press down upon this world like a heavy hand, and even in a room that is buried beneath the ground to attempt to shelter from that heat, the pressure can never be truly evaded. Her face is an empty mask, her eyes glittering faintly in the dim lighting, expressionless, not an ounce of telltale nuances are discernible. When she speaks again her words are measured, clear, only notable in how perfectly empty they are. For a moment it's a glimpse of the officer she once was. "I served the Empire with every breath of my body from the moment I was old enough to serve, until that last final day. I loved the Empire, I lived for no other reason than to SERVE. To hear was to OBEY," those words are spoken with slight emphasis, but it's enough to be noticeable. "I know that the fire will not be stopped. I know that the aims of the Sith are not that of the Empire as a whole. That the vision of the Empire is nothing more than the reflection of the Emperor's mind. Not that which we once were taught, nor which we once served. If you bring your fleet across my path, I will have no choice but to stand in your way. Just as you would, if I were to bring a fleet to your door step. I have no pretense, nor illusions, as to what the future holds." "The Empire we know was broken and shattered Lynae. You saw it as I did. Led by Admirals trying to carve some small piece of existence for themselves. Nothing more and nothing less." Dareus' eyes now burn with a fire of conviction inside themselves "I never knelt to beg for forgiveness in their ways, I knelt for forgiveness to see THROUGH it all." His hand was shaking, an almost uncontrollable desire to shatter her face into pieces with a punch, but he keeps it level "You don't know what it means to obey or wield power. You think you were a pioneer for women in the fleet while you remained a pawn and now you serve to prove nothing less than that. A piece of ass that gets a few extra rank pips on her shouler when it's due." If he meant to hurt her, it was now. Here in this place and no other "The same way you are in any fleet among Caspar or Republic, it all falls the same" Watching her softly, he smirks "You know nothing of the Emperors' mind, will, hopes or dreams. Led by nothing short of a glorified commander. Never given your own hold, wasn't it. Nothing you did could be approved without them...no Admirals in High Command so much came close to women outside a whorehouse. And you *allowed* it..." One slender eyebrow arches slightly upwards, blue eyes gleaming as her gaze roams slowly over his face, reading his expression and the dark instincts in his gaze, the way his hand trembles. She is, and has always been, a very astute reader of instincts in others, a keen observer for the smallest of telltale nuances. "Intriguing," she finally says, her voice clear and carrying, that one word falling lightly from her lips. "a piece of ass that gets a few extra rank pips on her shoulder when it's due." Her lips curve slowly upwards before she laughs, a breath of cold amusement. Tossing back the last of her drink she eases upwards and out of her chair, running one hand through her close cut hair, her gaze remaining on Dareus as she moves. "Absolutely fascinating, old friend, that you would think such a thing. But then, you do have a point. You are Malign's animal now, his thoughts are yours, his intentions are yours. " She shakes the sand out of her cloak and pins it again in place over her left shoulder, tugging the edge of the cloak up over the back of her head, "Better to serve of my own accord, than to lick the boots of Malign, like an animal accepting scraps off of his table." She shakes her head slightly, her face shadowed as she begins to move towards the door. "No...you're right." A gaze falls towards her, watching intently "You lick the boots of a want to be neutral government. Someone who can't even control their own people let alone an assassination attempt on the very ambassador *YOU* worked to bring there." An eyebrow is raised in return, "Or didn't you think of the possibility it was their own. You'd better realize if you answer they didn't, you would be stupid. And that is not remotely in your character, which would mean you are lying." Nothing goes without plan that Dareus says anymore, everything leading to another question that had to be worked well to answer, or at least lie to. "I could have you arrested right here. Now, without anyone knowing where you went." His eyes were distracted before turning back to her, he didn't. "You don't have any respect because of what...I became what you deserved and not me? Because I leave a trail of pregnant women behind me due to them being easy to toss into bed?" He shakes his head and Lynaes' chair slides out once again if she wants. "I'm not the man you left, Lynae." "Tell me, is that really the best insult you can come up with? Implying that I am like these other women you know? Easily tossed into bed? Easily fucked, impregnated, and tossed aside?" Lynae asks in return, turning slightly to study him. "Is that really the best you can do? Women in the Empire advance one of a handful of ways. By being one of the boys, and doing so means making one appears as LESS feminine as possible. By proving that they're better than the boys, which requires one to be twice as smart, twice as ruthless, and STILL hold your tongue when you're passed over again and again because our reproductive organs are on the inside instead of inconveniently located on the out. Third, by screwing the way to the top," she lists out in a cold voice. "If you can even begin to THINK that I'm a light skirt piece of ass, then your mind is warped beyond all recall." "No, I suppose you're right in some respects. I don't have time for insults anymore, and no need." He leans back in his chair, staring forwards and directly opposite of that from Lynae. "If you were that easy I would have gone for you myself. It's the fact there is strength in you that you just abandon because you feel like it's your duty and you failed somewhere." The Sith leaves that part alone; he'd had enough of the easy women this week alone; nothing else would change that. "All those years of university before your career and you still can't see past it can you." Dareus looks back towards her, "You weren't meant to be a doctor. Just because you have perfected the skills, that doesn't mean you enjoy it, does it. You settled on the life but you excelled at something better. You made a better killer than a healer." A ghost of a smile drifts across Lynae's face once again, a fleeting quick of lips and nothing more. "I didn't 'settle' on a life, I choose this," she answers softly. "Ironically, I am a better killer than healer. I've killed more than I could ever potentially heal. And I did it with ability and efficiency much like Tarkin once did. Yet.. you stand there, without fear. Do you think that, especially now, I would hesitate to kill you if you challenged me? You are a fledgling Sith, Antoine Dareus. What makes you think I do not stand here already prepared for something like that? That there is not a vial of a pathogen in my pocket that will kill you within thirty seconds?" She continues to slowly shake her head, "Succinylcholine is made up of two acetylcholine molecules. Estrases in the body break the chemical down into acetylcholine fairly rapdidly, so it's very like to be undetectible. Once the succcinylcholine is in the blood stream, there's nothing you can do about it. " Her tone of voice turns faintly clinical as she continues, "The onset of symmptoms would take about sixty seconds. Thirty seconds more for the full effects to present themselves. You would collapse in, say, ninety seconds. Breathing would stop completely about the same time. The heart is starved for oxygen, but will continue to try to beat, but won't be delivering any oxygen to the body or itself. Heart tissue will die in about two or three minutes - and will be extremely painful as it does so. Unconsciousness will happen at about the three-minute mark - unless you've been exerting yourself, then the process will be faster. Have you been exerting yourself?" she asks in an almost gentle voice. "Complete brain death will take another three minutes or so. After that, the succinylcholine will metabolize in the body. It will appear that you had a heart attack. Nothing more." The cloaked figure stands up sharply, within only a blink of an eye before his form was coldly staring at her, they were matched height but in his own mind he felt taller, and more powerful. "And you, Lynae Cassius...what makes you think that I don't wake up screaming every night in a cold sweat praying for someone like you to stop my heart from beating? Hmmmm...you're a walking filing cabinet of cold hard facts that makes absolutely everything you do nothing but perfection." Dareusn hadn't blinked yet, but he wouldn't back down in the least. Jedi could kill him with far better efficiency, but Lynae no longer had the heart in her to do this business. "You call yourself a monster for killing people you never knew; why don't you try bearing the hand of torture to the one who's done nothing but love you. Even I can't do that to you; but I did to my own, one I had as a wife before she saw where I now step." His voice becomes a tunnel towards her, something that doesn't slow down or warm up in the least. "Kill me. I asked you once and instead you held me in your arms. Now I'm suffering more than ever but I draw my very strength from it. If I'm meant to die here and now, then I will. If you're still the woman I remember, then you'll take command of one of my ships and make your own mark in history. If not. Then I'll wish you'd been at my side." Moving silently across the sand swept floor, Lynae comes to stand mere inches away from Dareus, invading the hell out of his personal space in the process. She lifts one hand to sweep the edge of the cloak back from her face, staring straight into his eyes from her vantage point, finding again that their height difference is so little that it truly is barely noticeable. They are of the same coloring, pale of skin, dark of hair, blue of eyes, close enough that they could have been blood kin if not for a chance of genetic dice. Her eyes hold his as she lifts that same hand and lightly rests her hand along the side of his face, "I do not think myself a monster," she says quiet. "That is the name that others think of me. I was a soldier then, a soldier of the Empire. I followed orders not out of fear, but out of loyalty, out of love. Everything I did was for the good of the Empire. My life, my service, for the Empire. For the Emperor. My greatest dream was to one day kneel before the Emperor and deliver some boon, some victory, worthy of just being able to breathe the same air." That same smile drifts across her face in a fleeting gesture, "You kneel at Malign's feet, and through him, you kneel before the Emperor. I do not think myself a monster. And I will never apologize for what I've done, not then - not now - not ever. To do so is to undo everything that I have accomplished in this life." She uses that one hand to apply pressure to the side of his face, attempting to tilt his head slightly to study his face with her eyes, "You ask me to kill you. Then, and no. I would no do it then, out of the love that I bear for you as I would if I'd been granted a brother in this genetic mix. If I were the woman that you remember, I would kill you now and put you out of your misery. If I were the woman you think you remember, I would fight you for your place at Malign's feet. But I do not want it." She takes her hand away from his face, a measured step back is taken as well, "When our paths next cross - if they ever do again - remember that I am indeed a better killer than I am healer. If you ask me again to take your life, I will." If there had been few moments where Dareus nearly cried, this would be one of them; ranking on the top of the list. Yet he doesn't. There was a new personal resolve in him. For the time being he watches her eyes softly, listening to every word she has to say before finally nodding which is all he can do. Reaching his hand up he takes hers into his own, and squeezes it. "I did what I could to protect you, including beg you to let me return to the Empire and let you life a free life to do what you did. I've thanked you for it...begged again in my dreams and nightmares for your forgiveness; because I ended so quickly what you built over most your life." Time slows down in the cantina, voices pale in comparison to his, at least in his own mind while everything is paled in comparison to those two standing there. "You watched me rise through the ranks and nurtured my whole being. When others ignored me and sent me back into exile it was you who forced me to pick myself out of the ashes." A small glimmer moves through his eyes before a smile crosses his lips "You made me Lynae. Which is why we left and suffered together, you couldn't bear to lose another creation of your destruction to something you didn't want to understand. Only now I do myself. I loved you, accepted you and bled for you with every step I had taken." The Sith was done; he had much more to deal with than this, though it was now breaking down what barriers he set up inside. Heading towards the door he stops to look back at her with a fleeting glance "If you interfere with what I hold in my soul, I will do the same. But at least I will give you some mercy of a quick death. It's the least I can do, for someone I've loved." "Forgiveness is yours, Dareus," Lynae says softly, knowing he'll hear her. "Though you never needed it. I made my own decisions. Were it not for me, adding my name to Kreldin's roster, we wouldn't be here. I should have put my knife across his throat the minute he spoke of treason, but I did not. It is you that should forgive me for the mess that this became. Though," she pauses, a slight shake of her head, "without it, we would not be where we are, would we?" She settles her cloak again around her shoulders, the edge shadowing her face, "Death is merely the next transition, the end of this one and the beginning of the next. all life recyles into energy, after all, does it not?" She moves towards the door as well, "I do not seek mercy, require it, nor would I accept - or expect - it. When you tire of the scraps from Malign's table, remember that I took the other path."